


Ghosts

by musicforswimming



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
Genre: F/F, Ghost Sex, Insanity, Post: s05e22 The Gift, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-01
Updated: 2005-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicforswimming/pseuds/musicforswimming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon thinks she's just projecting. She hears him telling Mal. "She sees a girl, a girl who gave her life up to protect her little sister."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

Little sister. Little sister still crying in her head, blood that she was supposed to spill and she gave her own instead, for she so loved the girl.  
  
There was blood, and light, and a fall, and now she's inside of River's head. Left one little sister, and ended up with another, except this time, she's the one who's helpless.  
  
She's not used to being helpless. River knows this.  
  
Hangs in the corners, not done baking, and Simon thinks she's just projecting. She hears him telling Mal. "She sees a girl, a girl who gave her life up to protect her little sister."  
  
Just another ghost, and when River tries to tell the girl that, she just laughs and laughs. "Kind of fitting, I guess," she says, and tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I mean, in the way where — "  
  
"Dead things." River understands.  
  
The girl's smile fades. No. Doesn't fade, but there is an edge to it, suddenly, a deep darkness and River can't see over the edge but the girl, she jumped into it. Which is why she's here, after all.  
  
Dead things.  
  
She comes and goes, and only River sees her. Jayne says to Simon that it's funny how River projects him as a girl. That's the message, anyway. It's Jayne, and hence the words are not so nice as those, but words are irrelevant.  
  
She sits on the edge of River's bed and strokes her hair. She lays down next to her and holds her, kisses her gently, and there is darkness and angels and blood, but right now, there is peace, and there is serenity, too.  
  
When Simon comes, she's gone, and Simon doesn't believe she was ever there. And he, he still thinks it's him, that she's seeing him, and she laughs and touches his hair. River knows her colors, at least.  
  
Fights. Hard. "I could kick your butt," the girl says, when River is in a teasing mood. "If I only had a body."  
  
"Made for fighting." She understands. But only the body, not the brain. And if they could take her brain and the strong fast body, they could have one broken fighter, and the brain under the bright hair in a River-body would give them one whole girl.  
  
Except she has no body, now. Hadn't. Time is difficult like that, there are paradoxes no one appreciates. Dead then, but not now, but yes now.  
  
River wakes up screaming, although it's hundreds of years in the past and it's already happened but it's happening again, there are lines but not for time. Day and night are not applicable, nor are the stories for the stars are always different and so there are no lines. No lines through time, it's all now, and she is screaming as the body would scream.  
  
Choked with dirt in the dark.  
  
Deep holes. Things that were dead, and are not anymore.  
  
A girl has a sister again, and River has lost another warm irrelevant thing.


End file.
